Please note 12pm start time.
We invite you to stay for a sandwich with the speaker after the talk.
Abstract
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease and a major unmet clinical need in our ageing population. The focus of the Oxford Parkinson’s Disease Centre (OPDC; www.opdc.ox.ac.uk) is to exploit the interdisciplinary research environment within Oxford to establish a leading centre focused on translational research understanding the earliest pathological pathways in PD. In the clinic we have collected 1000 PD patients, plus age-matched controls and “at-risk” individuals for our longitudinal study. The cohort is being studied to allow biomarker discovery, MRI and fMRI imaging programs, and genetic analysis by exome resequencing and high-density SNP arrays. We have generated >100 induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines from control individuals, from sporadic PD patients and patients carrying mutations in the leucine rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) and glucocerebrosidase (GBA) genes for neuronal differentiation. Mature dopaminergic neurons with correct morphology express essential protein markers, exhibit key neurophysiological features and reveal robust neurobiological deficits in PD lines. To better understand and model the sequence of events which occurs in vivo in PD we have created BAC transgenic mice and rats expressing mutant or wild-type forms of key genes alpha-synuclein and LRRK2. Rodents transgenic for disease genes show age-dependent motor and non-motor phenotypes and deficits specific to those parts of the brain vulnerable in PD. Our translational program spanning a longitudinal clinical study, human neuronal iPSC models and transgenic rodents encapsulates the key elements required to better understand and ultimately treat a major disease of our time.
Biography
Richard Wade-Martins is Associate Professor of Biomedical Science at Oxford University. He heads up the Laboratory of Molecular Neurodegeneration and leads the Oxford Parkinson’s Disease Centre (OPDC). See http://www.dpag.ox.ac.uk/team/group-leaders/richard-wade-martins for more information.